Mentoring

New service for students of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Information Technology and Computer Engineering

Within the framework of the project "Challenge Excellence in Teaching" RWTH Aachen University is committed to continuously improve the teaching and the academic feasibility of its study programs.

A key element in reaching this aim is the extensive "Aachen Mentoring Program" which complements the already existing advisory offers of the faculties with departmental mentors. In our faculty, we introduced mentoring in the beginning of 2012. Several mentoring conversations took place since then.

Our mentoring conversations are confidential, voluntary and personal consultations between a mentor (see below) and a mentee (student). Our basic concern is to assist the mentee in his/her personal study situation. We want to help him/her navigate their work and life at FB6/ RWTH Aachen University. Aim of the consultations is therefore to gain clarity about the mentees’ situation, to concretize their own goals, and then to identify potential improvements and individual strengths and mobilize them for their own goals.

We see ourselves as dialogue partners and your coach for questions about your daily student life. Furthermore, we serve as entry point to further advisory service and offers within RWTH Aachen University and beyond.

Informations about mentoring

Motivation and intention

Studying electrical engineering and information technology is quite challenging - as such. An additional challenge is to cope with the daily student life.

When you are a university beginner, you have some challenging things to do: Self-Organization in a new surrounding: new people, new places, new tasks, a huge group of colleagues...

You have to organize study and life: manage your time and energy, find friends and learning partners, cooperate with others, raise motivation and discipline, pass several examinations, ...sometimes handle failures....and even though go on.

Beeing in the mid of it, it may be a question, which program to take, what your footprint will be, which professional profile you want to develop... Some of you may think about a time abroad.

In every phase of your study it is essential, to know your personal wishes and objectives, to know your strenghts as well as your weaknesses - in order to make use of your full potential and in order to be motivated and on the right way.

Furthermore, you may face problems and challenges outside your study. And these may become a problem for the study, as they demand your attention and your time.

Our clear intention is to support you as well in these kind of challenges. We wish you to get better through your study!

In addition, we want to prevent unnecessary drop outs by an early coaching. In case you are basically interested in electrical engineering and information technology and you are able to learn it, we want to support and empower you.

What offers mentoring in FB6 for you?

an opportunity, to reflect the own situation in a personal talk and to elaborate new perspectives for your further development.

an opportunity to reflect the plans you made for exams and learning.

an opportunity, just to talk to someone elder / more experienced, who studied electrical engineering and/or worked as an engineer.

an opportunity to talk to someone, who is not part of your personal environment and who can take a neutral role, when reflecting personal matters.

a first contact point - just in case you do not yet know, what exactly is your problem and you need some one to sort out thougts and to see more clear.

a source for methods, suggestions and thougts, which put you in the right way.

a guide for other RWTH internal advisory and training offers.

a guide to further interesting information and support.

and even more....we just start from your where you are.

What kind of question and topics can you bring to a mentoring session?

There a quite some questions...

"My study not pans out - what can I do?"

"More or less it works, but it could be better ...there are things, that I'd like to change."

"Do I really want to become engineer?"

" I do not manage the organization of my work."

"Studying is not as I expected it to be..."

"I manage a lot...but when I go on as that, I'll soon burn out myself."

...just to give some examples. Even in case you do not know, if we are the right ones to talk to, we are a good first point of contact.

Mentoring is not...

We are not the advisory office for legally advices about examination regulations. For legally binding information e.g. on the processes of registration to or deregistration from exams please contact our Departmental Academic Advising ("Fachstudienberatung").

We are not an office to connect you to mentors in the industry.

We do not replace a psychotherapy. In case of severe crises (depression/ depressive mood, dependancy..) you can contact the Center for Mental Health of Students ("Zentrum für Psychische Gesundheit Studierender"). The advisory service is for free for students of the RWTH Aachen and the Fachhochschule Aachen. You can get first professional help there. Furthermore, you can check, if a psychotherapy could make sense for you.

Mentoring at RWTH

In October 2009 the RWTH Aachen University was awarded for its "Students in Focus" teaching and learning development strategy.

RWTH is committed to improving the quality of teaching at all levels. A key aspect of the "Students in Focus" strategy is the Aachen's Mentoring Programme.

Mentoring at Faculty 6 is part of this strategy. It is the concrete offer for students of electrical engineering and computer science to have individual mentoring talks.